Because every prices emanate from the subjective preferences of consumers.
“Customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.” – Steve Jobs
”Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself.” – Charlie Munger
“Live in the future and build what seems interesting.” – Paul Graham
Building what people want means finding out how much people know (and don’t know) since demand is shaped by available knowledge—to that extent you can (and should) know how far ahead you are in terms of knowledge. I-was-too-ahead-of-my-time type of excuse simply implies a lack of understanding in one’s part about knowledge status of others—which is a part of reality. You have to take into account the knowledge status of others.
And you can always educate other people—directly or indirectly through your product. This is what Bob Noyce did during his time with Intel.
Next:
- 7-1a Create something you would want for yourself, and never for some imaginary audience
- 7-2 Long optionality, volatility, change
Related:
- 1-1a5b4.5 Truth is about correspondence with reality
- You must evoke others each with his own unique knowledge about the world. See Lachmann for more.
- Rothbard evokes others but he does it to justify his MVP framework—despite his subjectivism, he implicitly assumes homogenous knowledge among people when it comes to capital and MVP.